Glasgow 2026: The Commonwealth Games in Lab Mode
If there is a playbook for the Commonwealth Games, Glasgow 2026 certainly went some way towards rewriting it. Instead of trying to be a shrunk-down Olympics, Glasgow delivered a lean, city-centred Games built around existing assets. It held just 10 sports (compared with 19 in Birmingham) across four venues clustered within an eight-mile corridor, using no new stadiums or athletes’ village.
The result was a dramatically smaller cost – about £160m, barely a fifth of Birmingham’s £780m budget. Crucially, this was not just belt-tightening but a deliberate reset to help create a Games, often weighed down with tradition, fit for the modern age. However, Glasgow and future iterations of the Games, such as Amdavad 2030, can go further – not just quitting the scale contest, but using that agility as creative permission to make their iteration of the Games a moment rooted in the host’s history and culture.
In other words, the Commonwealth Games should not try to out-Olympic the Olympics; they should become an innovation sandbox for both the sports and the host city.
A Live Prototype for Engagement
Being smaller gives the Commonwealth Games the possibility to experiment. And there is plenty happening elsewhere in sport that it can learn from.
UTMB, the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc World Series, has turned what could be a difficult sport to follow into something surprisingly immersive. Drones, runner-mounted cameras, and live GPS tracking bring viewers closer to races taking place across mountains and trails, rather than asking them simply to watch from a fixed camera position.
SailGP tackles inherent viewing problems in a different way. As a technically complex sport, it can make it challenging for a casual viewer to follow and get up to speed with the action. Its broadcasts therefore use a visually intuitive approach that incorporates live data and graphics to make the race clearer. If a viewer is dipping into a new sport, this design approach gets them hooked by easily showing where the boats are, how fast they are moving, who is gaining, and what is likely to happen next.
What interests me about both is not the technology itself, but the user-experience design behind it. They are designing intuitive ways into the sport. The Commonwealth Games could do the same through athlete-led streams, unique camera perspectives, and live data that clarifies rather than overwhelms.
The question should not be: What technology can we add?
It should be: What would make somebody care more?
A Games Shaped by Its Host
That experimental mindset should extend beyond broadcasting. A smaller Commonwealth Games does not need to reproduce the same sporting and cultural template every four years. In fact, one of its biggest opportunities may be to become much more specific to the place hosting it.
Amdavad 2030 could be rooted in a distinctly Indian approach. Future hosts should have the same licence to introduce disciplines, rituals, cultural references, and ways of experiencing sport that belong to them. That matters because the Commonwealth Games have often struggled to articulate what makes them different. Perhaps the answer is not another attempt to create one universal identity – perhaps it is the opposite.
Each Games could become a portrait of its host – expressed through sport, design, music, food, storytelling, and the way people move through the event. Athletes matter here too. Insights and narrative could be designed from the outset around how they train, where they come from in the world, their personal challenges, and why competing matters to them. This creates personality and context rather than a generic biographical template.
Sustainability and Circular Design
This experimental mindset applies directly to sustainability. Glasgow 2026 took an environmentally conscious approach and demonstrated how sustainability can be built in by design. By avoiding new construction, the Games sidestepped a major carbon burden and budget item. Existing stadiums were reused and repurposed, while athletes stayed in city hotels, leaving nothing behind but memories. The organising committee ran an all-electric vehicle fleet, designing the event around the footprint of the existing city.
Future hosts could build on Glasgow’s innovations by making sustainability choices even more visible. We could see kits branded for reuse, embedded with QR codes to follow their afterlife stories, or circular material choices like mono-material polyester and bio-based dyes on full display. Sponsors could provide practical offerings aligned with climate responsibility, such as solar chargers, waste-sorting stations, or rented bicycles. Every element of the Commonwealth Games – from stadium materials to uniforms and catering – could act as a live demonstration of circular design.
Inclusive Design by Default
There is another critical area where the Commonwealth Games has an opportunity: inclusion. The Olympics and Paralympics remain separate events, while Para sport sits directly within the Commonwealth Games programme itself. This asks the natural question of how far the Games can create a genuinely integrated sporting experience when designed that way from the beginning.
Broadcast platforms could move seamlessly between Para and non-Para events rather than treating them as separate products. Navigation, seating, ticketing, and digital services could be designed around a wider range of physical needs as standard. Athletes, designers, and brands could use the Games to prototype adaptive equipment, clothing, and interfaces that eventually improve sport for everyone. The ambition should not be to create an accessible version of the Commonwealth Games, but to design one Games that works for more people.
Brands, Kits, and Partnerships
A trimmed-down Games is also a natural testbed for brands and equipment. Instead of needing polished, finished projects, partners could prototype cutting-edge ideas in public. Just as running companies use fashion weeks to debut performance gear in a lifestyle context, the Games could invert that model, serving as a sporting lab for athletic technology. Brands could stress-test products, from repairable shoes to augmented reality spectator apps, on a global stage before a wider launch.
Partnerships would be measured by the services they improve – fan apps, transport solutions, active community programmes – as much as by logo placement. Bicycle sponsors might bring experimental e-bikes for race officials; athletic sponsors could trial biodegradable or digitally smart uniforms while collecting live performance data.
From Glasgow to Amdavad 2030
These ideas point towards crafting a new journey for athletes, fans, host cities, and brands. Together, these steps treat the Games as an experimental platform, where every detail from broadcast to branding is subject to rapid iteration and creative vision.
Glasgow has proved that the Commonwealth Games can survive without Olympic-style bloat. The real question now is how that freedom is used. Amdavad 2030 – marking the 100th anniversary of the Games – has an opportunity to show what is possible. If Glasgow redesigned the cost base, Amdavad can redesign the proposition. The Commonwealth Games will not earn a future by being a cheaper Olympics – they will earn it by becoming the place where the future of sport is invented.
Simon Daniel is a designer and creative director at forpeople.